Jane Stillwater is a freelance journalist, war correspondent, blogger, political Cassandra and author of "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," now available on Amazon.com

Sunday, November 25, 2012

(Allegedly) Chicago probate courts suck eggs& other cautionary tales for seniors Did you know that, legally, you cantell or write down any damn lie that you please
about anyone else on the planet -- as long as you qualify it by saying or writing the magic word "allegedly" just before you start lying through your teeth?Apparently you can -- because the use of "allegedly" changes a
statement of fact into an opinion, and opinions do not have to be
proven because, "pure opinions, by their very nature, cannot be proven
true or false." Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S.
1 (1990)http://www.splc.org/knowyourrights/legalresearch.asp?id=27

I recently found this out the hard way when I filed a libel suit in small claims court because the defendantsI was
suing had
(allegedly) lied their pants off about me in a probate matter where money was involved (and as we all know, where money is involved, anything can happen -- and usually does).

The
judge, however, then ruled against me -- even though the defendants had clearly lied like rugs and I could easily prove it. So why the adverse ruling? Because apparently it is always okay to tell any kind of whopper one pleases about anybody -- as long as said whopper iswritten or spoken in court documents or in front of a judge.

"You can say anything you want in a court document or in front of me," said the
judge, "due to what is called the 'Litigation Privilege'." Never heard of it. But obviously the defendants, one of whom was a lawyer, were(allegedly) VERY familiar with the term.

But then, of course, (allegedly) mendacious defendants then have to prove that what theysay to a judge is actually true --in
most courts. But (allegedly) you can say anything that you want in a
Chicago probate or conservatorship court -- and not even have to prove
what you say is true. What's with that?

(Allegedly)
the Chicago probate and conservatorship system is set up so that if you might happen to see a rich old lady walking down the street, you can follow her home to get her 411, then go to court andtell the judge that said rich old lady is incompetent, ask to become her guardian, wait for her to die -- and then spend her millions any way that you damn well please! Or, in many cases, you don't even have to wait for her to die. You
can just dump her in some sleazy flea-infested rest home and start living the Good
Life right now.

So why is this information about (allegedly) sleazy probate courts in Chicago
important to you and me too? Here's why. We all are eventually going
to die. Every one of us dies. That's what all human being eventually
do. We die. And when that eventually happens to us too,
do we really want some (allegedly) corrupt probate or conservatorship
court to be the one distributing our estate to whomever they please?

Hell no.

But it could happen. And it(allegedly) has already happened to some nice little old lady in Chicago named Mary Sykes http://marygsykes.com/. She was out bowling one day with
her youngest
daughter and while she was (allegedly) rolling
strikes and splits, her elder daughter went off to court, got an illegal
conservatorship order against Mary, drilled out her safety deposit box
illegally, made off with a whole mail-sack full of Double Eagle gold coins and is now living the good life while her mom is being forced to choke down unneeded drugs to keep her sedated in some God-awful rest home because her elder daughter has also sold her house. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6FbJzwtHocwU2hVcXpRaWpoM0k/edit?pli=1

This could happen to you too.

Where money is involved, anything can happen.

And with all these millions of baby-boomers floating around bowling alleys these days, it is definitely time to tighten up America's probate and conservatorship laws so that you and I don't end up like Mary Sykes. Well, at least you. No worries for me -- because while I do have several "unpredictable relatives," I don't own a house or have a safety deposit
box. PS: The Berkeley-Albany Bar Association just held their latest MCLE seminar -- this time on the subject of America's current marijuana laws. Did you know that pot is legal 19 states right now?The Feds, however, have completely ignored this current trend and have been brutally cracking down on medical marijuana users in the last two years -- and spending tons of billions of dollars doing it too. Why the big crack-downs? Because (allegedly) there arebig bucks to be made if you own a prison or work for the DEA.

"But," you might say, "what does all that have to do with the elderly?" A lot.

Since senior citizens and retirees compose one of the largest groups of legal medical cannabis users in America today, and also compose one of the largest groups living in subsidized housing, then as the Feds enthusiastically pursue their current policy of throwing legal medical cannabis users living in subsidized housing out on the streets, there is going to a LOT more poor sweet homeless elders hopelessly shuffling around America's freeway-on-ramps, selling oranges, begging for spare change and living in cardboard boxes in their old age. Yuck!

PPS: Getting old and creaky in the knees is already bad
enough -- but to also face the added burden of possibly being handed down a life sentence tosome old-folks-home-from-Hell and robbed blind by our very own conservator and/or be thrown in jail by the local Feds merely for seeking pain relief? We might as well have lived fast and died young!

****************************************************************************************************************** Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and
illegal) corporatist ball-busting
socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can
to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my
current alternate-economy schemes that never
seem to work -- but I keep hoping!******What next? I'm still trying to get to Haiti
ASAP but unfortunately my investigative-reporting trip has had to be
postponed until June. Please donate toward my trip's expenses here if you can:https://www.wepay.com/donations/going-to-a-vodou-cave-in-haiti

******Need
someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what
needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in
Washington!)****Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all
kinds of older women -- from judges,
business execs and other insane zombies to bag
ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and
dying patients in rest homes. I've played them
all. So send me a script and let's do this.
Hollywood, here we come!****Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.****

I recently got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com
and I'll stamp your
document, make it official and only
charge $10. Of course if you live
outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge
travel expenses -- but am well worth
it!

I
also wrote a book
about going on Hajj (also included
as a chapter in "Bring
Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book
is cheaper -- but it's
worth buying them both!) My book
on the Hajj is so outstanding
that I bet even Christian
fundamentalists will love it! Please
buy it here:http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product****"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!"You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds."You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with
this logo
printed on them. They make great
gifts, especially for those
of us who are still idealists in
these troubled times. To
purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

Friday, November 16, 2012

When Texas secessionists met Santa Ana's ghost

If Texas secedes, Santa Ana is gonna be celebrating his heart out down at the graveyard!

After the Border Patrol leaves Texas (along with the Coast Guard and
the U.S. Army of course), Mexico will easily be able to take back Texas.
And Santa Ana's ghost will be happily shouting, "Remember the Alamo!"
on the Day of the Dead.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

EXTRA: Israel has just declared war on Gaza (and is hoping that no one will notice)

Israel's jingoistic prime minister
Bibi Netanyahu, whose popularity as just sunk once again in the polls,
is now trying to pull off another Hail-Mary play before the January elections -- by once again unleashing massive "Cast Iron" death squads by land and by air onto the trapped and vulnerable people of Gaza.

Killing Iranians has its dangers.

Killing trapped and defenseless Palestinians, however, is like shooting fish in a barrel.

If Bibi's poorly-thought-out actions should stir up a sudden guerrilla war in Israel/Palestine -- as doomed and desperate Palestinians, following in the brave tradition of the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto resistance fighters before them, try to fight backeven though it is hopeless --then Netanyahu will deserve what he gets: To go down in history as a bully, a sadist, a tyrant, and a pariah to all righteous men.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Brain drain: The new Israeli diaspora

I recently went to a showing of an excellent British mini-series called "The Promise" http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-promise/articles/video-the-promise-trail. Filmed in Israel, it depicts the
struggles of one brave English soldier at the end of the British Mandate period -- as he futilelytries to save the lives ofhis Palestinian friends and fellow-soldiers during the violent and pitiless 1948 takeover of the Holy Land by Zionist thugs.

During this movie, I cried a lot.

And after the film was over and refreshments were being served ("Never
turn down free food," is my motto!), I had an interesting conversation
with some guy who currently works down in Silicon Valley.

"You know," he said, "things are changing rapidly in Israel right
now."

"You
mean that it's no longer
the same-old same-old there any more? With Israeli neo-cons trying to pass themselves off as pious Jews while happily committing mass murder and partying all night in Tel Aviv-- andChristians and Muslims constantly getting beat up and shot at forthe crime of making olive oil while Palestinian?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq2MpG4gQgk

By this time I had become rather cynical about Israeli neo-conmercenaries and land-grabbers -- almost as cynical as I've become about the
neo-con mercenaries and
land-grabbers here in
America too.

"Well, of course there's still that," the techie guy replied, "but something else is happening in Israel now as well. People have started to leave there en masse. And not just the usual ones either
-- not just the poor abused Palestinians still trying to sneak over the
border into Jordan or Egypt. And not the discriminated-against Sephardi Jews either,at the very bottom of the Israeli social pecking order, last hired and first fired, who you wouldn't want dating your daughter."http://www.mayacafe.com/forum/topic1sp.php3?tkey=1237163771

"Then
who?"

"The technological elite in general are now leaving in large numbers. And formerly-Russian tech experts in particular are leaving as fast as they can." Interesting. Hmmm.

"Are you talking about the kind of people referred to in all those Israeli-sponsored subway
ads," I replied, "bragging that Israelis have invented thus-and-so hot new gadget or found a cure for this or that horrendous disease? Those are the ones that are leaving?"

"Like rats from a sinking ship." I guess no one with any brains wants to keep living in a country where its leaders are always either declaring war, waging war or industriously hunting for a new war to declare.

"This new brain-drain is actually happening right now -- and pretty soon all the people who will be left living in Israel will be the hotel maids, the IDF hard-liners, the
land-grabbing neo-cons and racists, haters and religious nuts." Good grief. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33005.htm

"You have to understand that much of the current Israeli
scientific community had originally immigrated to Israel from Russia in order to get away from all the persecution, corruption, wars, lack of civil rights and poverty that existedthere before, during and after the breakup of the old USSR." And from the winters of course.

"Many of these Russian immigrants were not even Jews. They were gentiles who just wanted to get out.
And, once in Israel, they discovered that it wasn't the land of milk
and honey that they had expected. And so now they are leaving Israel also, moving on."

"Where to?"

"Here."

PS: I'm currently in the middle of reading Jimmy Carter's fascinating memoir, "White House Diary". Good grief! If only we had elected Carter for another four years instead of that lying skunk Reagan, America would be in so much better shape right now.For instance, the whole world loved Jimmy for his heroic stands on civil rights, which gave the United States even more love, sympathy and cachet back then than we've ever had since, even on the day after 9-11 (before Bush bungled it).

And Carter
didn't "give away" the Panama Canal either. He traded it for the whole
world's good will and to make up
for what Nixon, Kissinger and the CIA had done to Chile, Argentina,
etc. Back then, Carter could go into almost any country on the planet
and get a standing ovation -- while Nixon, Reagan and both Bushes only got rotten tomatoes.

Plus if we had listened to Carter back in the day, perhaps global warming, 9-11, Hurricane Sandy and Karl Rove also might have been avoided!

And if only we had listened to Carter back when he warned us again and again about how
Israeli neo-cons spoke with forked-tongues. And they still do. And
now we've got a whole new crop of neo-con serpents all of our own here
in America as well! Plus now various neo-con Red States are actually threatening to secede. Ah, if only they WOULD. Just think of all
the money the rest of us would save.

Can't you just picture Arkansas out spending billions of dollars on its 800-odd military bases around the world or dealing with the Benghazi
crisis? Or Alabama supplying Israel with F16s, cluster bombs and white
phosphorus? Or South Carolina scaring China into adjusting its trade
deficit? Or oil-depleted Texas trying to intimidate OPEC, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, Venezuela and the Saudis? Or Tennessee happily trying to tell Putin or even North Korea to go to hell?

Now that I think about it, secession could actually be the final key to finally putting an end to America's "endless wars".

Maybe Lincoln should never have tried
to save the Union after all -- except for perhaps New Orleans and
Nashville.****************************************************************************************************************** Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and
illegal) corporatist ball-busting
socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can
to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my
current alternate-economy schemes that never
seem to work -- but I keep hoping!******What next? I'm still trying to get to Haiti
ASAP but unfortunately my investigative-reporting trip has had to be
postponed until June. Please donate toward my trip's expenses here if you can:https://www.wepay.com/donations/going-to-a-vodou-cave-in-haiti

******Need
someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what
needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in
Washington!)****Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all
kinds of older women -- from judges,
business execs and other insane zombies to bag
ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and
dying patients in rest homes. I've played them
all. So send me a script and let's do this.
Hollywood, here we come!****Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.****

I recently got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com
and I'll stamp your
document, make it official and only
charge $10. Of course if you live
outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge
travel expenses -- but am well worth
it!

I
also wrote a book
about going on Hajj (also included
as a chapter in "Bring
Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book
is cheaper -- but it's
worth buying them both!) My book
on the Hajj is so outstanding
that I bet even Christian
fundamentalists will love it! Please
buy it here:http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product****"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!"You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds."You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with
this logo
printed on them. They make great
gifts, especially for those
of us who are still idealists in
these troubled times. To
purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

Friday, November 09, 2012

In this past election, Karl Rove lost bigtime in his bid to buy America's elections -- which is good. But on the other hand, Shelley
Berkley and several other excellent forward-thinking candidates also lost too -- and that's bad. And judging by the thousands of racist tweets sent directly after this election, our country is also still seriously divided. Yet despite all this, America is now supposed tomove Forward.

Unfortunately, however, no truly civilized civilization can truly ever move forward if its economy still remains based mostly on greed and war -- and so post-election-day America is still in Big Trouble. And so nothing has really changed inour country. Move on, folks. Nothing to write about
here.

So I've decided to write about my frustrated attempts to throw my daughter Ashley and her fiance
Hugo a surprise wedding on 12-12-12 instead.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to pull a wedding together? Almost harder than invading Afghanistan.

So far, I've only been able to line up the priest and the flower girl. That's about it. Oh, and there are approximately 400 people that I have to invite too. And 12-12-12 is only a few weeks away. And I'm also pretty much broke. Do you think that the guests would mind too much if we just had the wedding in the cold dark rain up in Tilden Park on 12-12-12, followed by a BYOB reception in the Little Farm parking lot? Yeah, they probably would.

But here's what I'd been
thinking before all this new venue-and-catering nonsense began: We would kidnap Hugo and Ashley,
throw them into a church, strip them down to their skivvies, dress them
all up in regal wedding finery and then shove
them in front of the altar. They've been together for almost four
years now. It's about time that they tied the knot. Plus 12-12-12 won't be coming around again for another 100 years.

And this 12-12-12 will be on a Wednesday.

And all y'all would be invited too -- if only we could come up with a church. And a reception venue. And invitations. And centerpieces for the tables. And flowers. And a band. And food and a cake. And barrels of money to pay for all this.

Please, President Obama? Can we please hold this wedding on your White House front lawn?

******************************************************************************************************************Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and
illegal) corporatist ball-busting
socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can
to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my
current alternate-economy schemes that never
seem to work -- but I keep hoping!

******Need
someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what
needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in
Washington!)

****Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie?
Then I'm your man! I can portray all
kinds of older women -- from judges,
business execs and other insane zombies to bag
ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and
dying patients in rest homes. I've played them
all. So send me a script and let's do this.
Hollywood, here we come!

****Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.****

I recently got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com
and I'll stamp your
document, make it official and only
charge $10. Of course if you live
outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge
travel expenses -- but am well worth
it!

I
also wrote a book
about going on Hajj (also included
as a chapter in "Bring
Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book
is cheaper -- but it's
worth buying them both!) My book
on the Hajj is so outstanding
that I bet even Christian
fundamentalists will love it! Please
buy it here:http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product****"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!"You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds."You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with
this logo
printed on them. They make great
gifts, especially for those
of us who are still idealists in
these troubled times. To
purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters